Surprised and saddened to hear of Chris’s passing, I share the regret expressed movingly in so many of the tributes here. At Anglian Water in 1987 I first heard of Chris Mellor, a “Finance Bloke” on a Privatisation Working Group. Our paths rarely crossed until 1994. By then the “Finance Bloke” had become Group Finance Director. Huge changes of Anglian’s structure and style took effect in 1994. They affected every employee and, indirectly, many of their families. Some felt excitement, others apprehension and disappointment. New ideas abounded, declaimed with bubbling enthusiasm. Amid the noise and turbulence of business re-engineering and individual behavioural change, Chris seemed to me a pillar of calm and reliability. That was something I appreciated when having to interact with more loquacious and demonstrative colleagues. I learned there was more to Chris than met the eye, including predilections for both meditation and drumming. A contradiction of styles and interests, surely? Perhaps not. A moment’s reflection showed me that my judgment had been premature...think “rhythm”..... Twenty years since I last saw him, a memory of Chris prompts me to learn now, to understand now, more about my friends and neighbours, while we can still share. Peter Stott, former colleague at Anglian Water